Winter Fuel Payment special: Labour accused of acting ‘without transparency’ as pensioners feel ‘betrayed’

Many Yorkshire Post readers, like David Ellis from Hedon, voted for Labour for the first time in years.

Yet already they feel “betrayed” and “disappointed” by the new government, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves significantly cut back the Winter Fuel Payment after a month in power.

The payment, brought in by Ms Reeves’ hero Gordon Brown in 1997, combined with cost of living support, has given pensioners a buffer against the price shock from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However this winter, it will only be paid to those in receipt of pension credit, cutting the number of recipients from 11.4 million to 1.3 million.

This move was not in the manifesto, and even caught Labour MPs off guard when it was announced by the Chancellor.

Ms Reeves explained that it was necessary to help fill the apparent £22 billion “black hole” the new government had found in public finances.

However pensioners living in poorly insulated old houses will have to choose “between heating and eating”, National Pensioners Convention general secretary Jan Shortt has said.

“It will create poverty for older people,” she explained.

“You will have people having to choose between heating and eating.

“It will put more pressure on an already burdened NHS and people will die, as they do every winter, because they can’t afford to heat their home.”

On top of that, the energy price cap is going up and will hike an average household’s bill by 10 per cent between October and December.

That means pensioners are now paying 65 per cent more for their energy that before the price shock, while losing the Winter Fuel Payment.

Age UK director Caroline Abrahams described the move as “reckless and wrong” and “spells disaster for pensioners on low and modest incomes”.

She said: “This latest bad news about the energy price cap rising quite significantly makes it even more obvious that means testing winter fuel payments with virtually no notice and with no protections to safeguard vulnerable groups was the wrong policy choice and one that is potentially hazardous for some older people.”

Conservative leadership candidate James Cleverly has accused Ms Reeves of acting “without a democratic mandate or proper transparency.”

He told the Yorkshire Post: "Labour made no mention of removing the winter fuel payment in their manifesto.

“Their justification is fabricated and the public deserves to know the full facts. Instead, Labour is hiding them.

“Labour are implementing a change that will affect so many people, at a time when there is already pressure on energy bills, without a democratic mandate or proper transparency.”

Fellow contender Tom Tugendhat said: “It is the same old Labour, choosing to favour union barons and inflation busting pay rises over protecting our pensioners and investing in tomorrow.

“This is not how you stop strikes, nor is it how you deliver better public services. Labour aren’t in opposition anymore. Their actions have consequences and this time round, they’re hurting millions of pensioners.”

It’s not only the Conservatives who are critical of the new government’s move.

Labour’s York Central MP Rachael Maskell has said she is “deeply concerned” and urged the Chancellor to consider a social tariff.

She said: “We know that the oil and gas giants made tens of billions of pounds in profit, and when you think that old people are going to be making that consideration of whether or not they put their heating on this winter, it’s of deep, deep concern.”

Ms Maskell said the current support would be “insufficient for those people just above the pension credit threshold”.

She added: “(The measures) weren’t a manifesto (pledge), and for that reason, I really urge the government to think again about how it’s going to protect the most vulnerable people in our society, our pensioners, this winter.”

Consumer champion Martin Lewis has told the government to widen the scope of the Winter Fuel Payment.

He said the “eligibility is being squeezed to too narrow a group” with those just above the threshold worst hit.

Mr Lewis is set to meet the Chancellor in the coming weeks and will ask her to offer the payment to those in council tax bands A to D.

This would be an “imperfect but workable proxy for lower household incomes”.

Mr Lewis advised Yorkshire families worried about their energy bills increasing to look for cheap year-long fixed rates, some of which are seven per cent less than the price cap.

Earlier this week, Ms Reeves and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall urged elderly people to check if they were eligible for pension credit.

They think 880,000 households eligible for the support are yet to claim.

Ms Reeves said: “The dire state of the public finances we inherited from the previous government means we’ve had to make some very difficult decisions.

"Our commitment to supporting pensioners remains, which is why we are maintaining the triple lock.

“We want pensioners to get the support they are entitled to. That’s why I urge all pensioners to check whether they are eligible for Pension Credit.”

While Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband said: “We will do everything in our power to protect billpayers, including by reforming the regulator to make it a strong consumer champion, working to make standing charges fairer, and a proper Warm Homes Plan to save families money.”

A Labour spokesperson added: “The previous Conservative government knowingly overspent on departmental budgets, covered it up, called an election and ran away from the problem. They left a £22 billion black hole in the country’s finances.

“This was a tough choice but a necessary one. The Tory government made commitment after commitment without knowing where the money was going to come from, and without action the scale of the inheritance the Tories have left us would have threatened our economic stability.”